nested supplements
A curious phrasing that is for me, I think, ungrammatical. The following is from a story on the Hatto scandal; the label BIS are reporting what Barrington-Coupe told them:
"It is self-evident that I have acted stupidly, dishonestly and unlawfully," he wrote, the label told the BBC.
Yet I can't quite see why it should be prohibited. If the inner attribution was integrated and the outer one was supplementary it would of course be grammatical:
He wrote, "It is self-evident that I have acted stupidly, dishonestly and unlawfully," the label told the BBC.
I suppose it's because supplements, by their nature, aren't hierarchically incorporated, so can't be nested.
"It is self-evident that I have acted stupidly, dishonestly and unlawfully," he wrote, the label told the BBC.
Yet I can't quite see why it should be prohibited. If the inner attribution was integrated and the outer one was supplementary it would of course be grammatical:
He wrote, "It is self-evident that I have acted stupidly, dishonestly and unlawfully," the label told the BBC.
I suppose it's because supplements, by their nature, aren't hierarchically incorporated, so can't be nested.